The False Premise Of The Iran Debate

November 23, 2011 1:19 pm ET —
Walid Zafar

Being a hawk means never having to say you're
sorry.

The Iraq war
did not discredit the idea of war, but it certainly should discredit the people
who strongly promoted it. In fact, it has in most circles. But among conservatives,
such people still have the standing to be taken seriously when they promote
another war based on false premises, exaggeration and lies. Although most of the Iraq deceivers are out
of government today, they still populate think tanks, op-ed pages and, most
troubling, the campaigns of most of the GOP candidates for president.

Case in point: At last night's GOP presidential
debate, Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute, one of the
loudest cheerleaders for the Iraq war, addressed the candidates:

Good evening. I'm Danielle Pletka. I'm the Vice
President for Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise
Institute. Yesterday the United States and the U.K. slapped new sanctions on
Iran. But we haven't bought oil directly from Iran in over 30 years. We've had
targeted sanctions on Iran for more than half that time. Nonetheless, Iran is
probably less than a year away from getting a nuclear weapon. Do you believe
that there is any set of sanctions that could be put in place that would stop
Iran from getting a nuclear weapon?

Watch:

The question about
sanctions is a good one. She acknowledges that the sanctions she's advocated
have failed and she wants to know if the candidates will consider further
sanctions to deter Iran's nuclear ambitions and slow down its program. But the premise of the question is not just
false, it's completely fabricated.

Either Pletka has seen
intelligence that literally no one else in the world has access to or, despite
being a scholar at one of the most renowned conservative think tanks, she's
just lying through her teeth.

While there is genuine
concern about Iran's nuclear ambitions, there is no evidence that Iran is less
than a year away from having a bomb. Take a look at this: The Christian Science Monitor's Scott Peterson has chronicled
more than 30 years of warnings that an Iranian bomb was imminent. As he wrote,
"Breathless predictions that the Islamic Republic will soon be at the
brink of nuclear capability, or — worse — acquire an actual nuclear bomb, are
not new. ... And yet, those predictions have time and again come and gone."

But Pletka, rather
nonchalantly, suggests Iran will have a bomb before the next
presidential election, something that nobody with any standing here or in
Israel claims.

So where does Pletka get
her one-year prediction? Not from the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) recent report
on Iran's nuclear program. As Greg
Thielmann and Benjamin Loehrke point
out, the report by the IAEA in no way states that Iran will have a
nuclear bomb "less than a year" from now, as Pletka coolly asserted last night.
On the contrary, the report is consistent with the findings of the controversial
2007 National Intelligence Estimate, which concluded that Iran had stopped its weapons
program in 2003.

Testifying before a House oversight subcommittee this
month, Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense Colin Kahl cautioned lawmakers that there is no evidence
that Iran has decided to pursue a nuclear weapon. "When you have groups
estimating one year or two years until [Iran] could have a testable nuclear
devise, [sic] the important caveat is
it is from a decision by the Iranian government to 'dash' for a nuclear device.
There is no evidence that this decision has been made," he
said.

That still leaves us with an important question. Neither the U.S. nor
the U.N. has accused Iran of actively working on a nuclear device. So where did
Pletka get this information that Iran
is "probably less than a year away from getting a nuclear weapon?" If
history is any indication, she "probably" made it up.

UPDATE: Pletka has written a blog
post on the American Enterprise Institute site clarifying her comment:

While many in the journalism world focused on
the quasi-answers to that question from the candidates, many Twitterati were
more consumed by my "less than a year" assessment, challenging me to cite a
source. Okey dokey folks.

She cites two pieces that support her contention
that Iran could rapidly develop a weapon. One of them is co-authored by her
husband (which she doesn't note) and the other, if you follow the link, states
that "predicting when Iran might obtain nuclear weapons is highly uncertain."

She writes: "Quibblers will suggest that there
are important 'ifs' in both these assessments. And yes, the key 'if' is 'if'
Iran decides to build a bomb. So, I suppose when I said 'less than a year away
from having a nuclear weapon,' I should have added, 'if they want one.'"